Both Uses of
procure
in
1984, by Orwell
- The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil.†
p. 6.9 *procured = got by special effort
- But it needed desperate courage to kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick and certain poison, were completely unprocurable.†
p. 102.5unprocurable = not able to be gotten by special effortstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unprocurable means not and reverses the meaning of procurable. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
Definition:
get by special effort